Community Commentary:

In his Oct. 14 community commentary “Turkey-Armenia talks cause for celebration,” Gerry Rankin makes a couple of astute observations. He states that “Armenia may be strong in heart, but it is relatively weak in economic and military power, and potential adversaries surround it on every side” and that “peace is everybody’s business.”

To his latter point, he is correct that peace is everybody’s business. But the question must be asked, “At what cost?” The issue of Armenian-Turkish relations is not as simple as Monday morning political quarterbacks would like us to believe. By condoning the preconditions of these talks as they relate specifically to the historical commission, we are also condoning the Turkish government’s genocidal campaign against its civilian minority populations (Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks).

Forcing Armenia to reevaluate this period of history as a precondition to negotiations is tantamount to Congress only agreeing to pass the Civil Rights Act if African Americans agreed to a historical panel to study whether the institution of slavery was a human rights catastrophe or an economic necessity.

The United States that I was born and raised in has stood for many things throughout its 200-plus year history — freedom, justice and liberty, among other exalted ideals and principles. Silence on an issue of such moral imperative as Turkey’s acknowledgment of its crimes against humanity does not fit into our American paradigm. Nor is this time for us to be complacent under the guise of advocating peace.

The fact that Armenia is weak, surrounded by hostile neighbors and has had its arm twisted into signing these protocols should not be a reason for us to celebrate or breathe a sigh of relief now that the genocide issue is being dealt with by other dubious methods.

Fortunately, many American leaders have spoken out unequivocally on the need to address this issue head on. One of our greatest presidents, Teddy Roosevelt, wrote that “the Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war [World War I], and failure to act against Turkey is to condone it.”

Sadly, his words rang hollow even then and we have paid the price since with each succeeding act of genocide and Holocaust.

The signing of the protocols by Armenia and Turkey may be a happy day for the naive among us, but for those who have studied history, it is a miserable harbinger of a day when “inconvenient truths” like the Armenian Genocide can be swept under the floor mat of political and economic expediency.

I only hope that honest advocates of peace will take the time to educate themselves about this issue and subsequent justice deferred before they speak in platitudes about peace and harmony because after all is said and signed, the stains of this colossal human tragedy on our souls will last longer than the next FOX or CNN news cycle.

 ARDASHES “ARDY” KASSAKHIAN is Glendale’s city clerk.